{"id":132727,"date":"2026-02-13T18:15:44","date_gmt":"2026-02-13T18:15:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/132727\/"},"modified":"2026-02-13T18:15:44","modified_gmt":"2026-02-13T18:15:44","slug":"activists-re-install-rainbow-flag-at-stonewall-national-monument-defying-trump-admin","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/132727\/","title":{"rendered":"Activists re-install Rainbow flag at Stonewall National Monument, defying Trump admin"},"content":{"rendered":"

\t\t\t\t\"Activists\t\t\t<\/p>\n

Activists re-installed the Pride flag at the Stonewall Monument.<\/p>\n

Photo by Dean Moses<\/p>\n

Three days after the Trump administration\u00a0removed a Rainbow Flag from the Stonewall National Monument<\/a>, defiant activists hoisted the Rainbow Flag once again in front of a jam-packed crowd of fed-up LGBTQ community members who flooded the area surrounding Christopher Park.<\/p>\n

The flag re-raising ceremony, while ultimately successful, took a dramatic turn from its original plan. For days, elected officials \u2014 including Manhattan Borough President Brad Hoylman-Sigal and Manhattan State Senator Erik Bottcher \u2014 vowed to raise the flag during a 4 p.m. event on Feb. 12. Those elected officials indeed brought a Rainbow Flag attached to a thin flagpole and placed it next to the flagpole where the original Rainbow Flag was located, but the new flag did not get attached to the actual flagpole at the Stonewall National Monument \u2014 and it was only flying at about half-staff.<\/p>\n

The elected officials left the flag in place and walked away, leaving the audience groaning in disappointment and prompting several activists to walk up and actually install a Rainbow Flag onto the flagpole \u2014 with scissors and all. Minutes later, the Rainbow Flag went up and sat just inches above the American Flag on the same flagpole after the activists finished raising the new flag.<\/p>\n

\"The<\/a>The Pride flag makes its way through the crowd.Photo by Dean Moses \"The<\/a>The Pride flag makes its way through the crowd.Photo by Dean Moses \"The<\/a>The Pride flag makes its way through the crowd.Photo by Dean Moses<\/p>\n

\u201cOur elected officials, though I love them, brought in their own flagpole and planted it in the ground in front of it, and their plastic pole was lower than that flagpole, so it resulted in our Rainbow Flag being lower than [the American Flag] and not on the actual flagpole,\u201d Jay W. Walker, who was among the activists who raised the flag, told Gay City News moments after the flag went back up. \u201cThe least we could do is to put our flag higher on this cord than the American Flag.\u201d<\/p>\n

The flag re-raising ceremony marked the latest chapter in a dizzying week of developments stemming from the Trump administration\u2019s removal of the Rainbow Flag that was first installed in 2022 under then-President Joe Biden. Gay City News exclusively reported on the flag\u2019s removal on Feb. 9 after National Park Service officials said the flag was removed due to \u201cgovernment-wide guidance\u201d stipulating that \u201conly the US flag and other congressionally or departmentally authorized flags\u201d can be flown \u201con NPS-managed flagpoles, with limited exceptions.\u201d<\/p>\n

The National Park Service did not immediately respond to Gay City News\u2019 request for comment after the flag was re-installed.\n<\/p>\n

This story first appeared on our sister publication gaycitynews.com<\/a>.\n<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Photo by Dean Moses \"The<\/a>The Pride flag gets re-installed.Photo by Dean Moses \"The<\/a>The Pride flag gets re-installed.Photo by Dean Moses<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Activists re-installed the Pride flag at the Stonewall Monument. Photo by Dean Moses Three days after the Trump…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":132728,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[75,84,83,9,24,63,55782,56525,56021,55646],"class_list":{"0":"post-132727","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-manhattan","8":"tag-manhattan","9":"tag-manhattan-headlines","10":"tag-manhattan-news","11":"tag-new-york","12":"tag-new-york-city","13":"tag-nyc","14":"tag-pride-flag","15":"tag-rainbow-flag","16":"tag-stonewall","17":"tag-stonewall-national-monument"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/132727","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=132727"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/132727\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/132728"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=132727"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=132727"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=132727"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}